


Science and Art

by Afflitto



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: M/M, Prumano - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-08
Updated: 2016-01-08
Packaged: 2018-05-12 12:24:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5665987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Afflitto/pseuds/Afflitto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the kitchen, Lovino is an artist and Gilbert is a scientist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Science and Art

**Author's Note:**

> My sub prumano secret santa for hetarehetalia. The prompt was 'holiday baking'. Hopefully I did an okay job!
> 
> it's pretty short, but I thinking making it longer would have hurt it. Sorry that it's late. Something came up with your original secret santa, but I got it done as quick as I could. I hope you have a LOVELY 2016!

Lovino is a more of a “toss everything in the pan” kind of guy, where guesswork is guided by smell and frequent tastings.  He pops the cap from bottles of dried herbs and sniffs, then wafts the steam from his fry pan; he sprinkles some of this—and a lot of that—and maybe a pinch of something else.  It’s an art without instruction.  A painting without numbers.  Each flavor is a different note.  Each flavor makes or breaks the dish.

The kitchen is small, and Gilbert is baking on the other designated counter space, a square crammed between the wall and the sink where the coffee-maker used to be until Lovino moved it.  He has to measure everything precisely.  His kitchen scale is electronic and measures down to the nearest 1/10 of a gram.  A skewed ratio could mean a too dry or structurally unsound dish.  Baking, after all, is more a science than an art.

Lovino pauses as Gilbert upends his bowl of dough on the dusted countertop.  He watches the muscles in his arms ripple as he starts to knead it with his knuckles.  Then, as he works the dough, he rolls his shoulders then his whole body into it.

Gilbert glances over.  “Like what you see?”

“What if I did?” Lovino sticks his tongue out.  He pushes the pan over to the spare burner to cool. 

Then, he nudges Gilbert aside with a bump of his hip and takes over kneading.  Lovino starts folding the dough in on itself a few times, then rolls it into a log.  This, he laces and braids in on itself before brushing with eggyolk and sprinkling with almond slivers. 

Satisfied, Lovino shoves it in the oven.  “Bake my cookies already.  The chocolate ones with that cherry shit going on.” 

Gilbert chuckles but drags a fresh bowl toward himself.  He tries to ignore the other bowls piling a crooked tower in the sink, instead squatting down to eye-level with his scale as he starts adding flour.

The timer chimes and Lovino grabs a mitt to yank a fresh batch of gingerbread cookies from the oven.  As they’re cooling, he starts slopping together a frosting.

“Decorate them like our family,” Gilbert says with a grin.  “All of them.”

Lovino points to the biggest gingerbread man—the one whose face he’d accidentally squashed when sliding the baking pan into the oven.  “Okay, but that one’s Ludwig.”

They laugh together, two lovers in the kitchen:  one artist and one scientist.  One perfectly balanced team.


End file.
